Is the Qur'an positive towards Christianity or not?
In order to answer the question posed by the title, I must first clarify the meaning of a number of key terms. The Qur'an is the scripture of the religion of Islam, allegedly the direct word of God and revealed to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel.[1] Islam is a religion characterised by strict monotheism, a belief that God (or "Allah") sends prophets, the most recent of whom was Mohammed, and a belief that Judaism and Christianity are what remains of two former, but now arguably corrupt revelations of God to former prophets.[2]
Although I am aware that some Muslims like to argue that the present form of Christianity is not actually Christianity, but rather a perversion thereof which they variously label Christendom or Western Christianity in order to reserve Christianity for what they believe to be the original teachings of Christianity (i.e. a primitive form of Islam),[3] I will instead adopt a more common approach to the definition of Christianity, by which I will mean the religion which exists at present; the religion which is characterised by a belief in Jesus of Nazareth as being God the son, second person of the Holy Trinity; the religion which is split into three groups of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant.[4]
The Qur'an never says "Christianity is good" or "Christianity is not good", and does not answer as a whole what its view on Christianity is. Therefore, in order to answer whether or not the Qur'an has a positive attitude towards Christianity, it will not be possible to take the question as a whole; we will have to split it up into sub-questions. These sub-questions will discuss what the Qur'an has to say about different aspects of Christianity or things which are related to Christianity, and once we have answered these sub-questions we will be able to put the answers together and discuss what conclusions, if any, we can come to about the Qur'ans attitude to Christianity as a whole.
I shall split the question of how positive the Qur'an is towards Christianity down into a number of sub-questions. I shall analyse what the Qur'an has to say about the person of Jesus, the Bible, Christian doctrines such as the trinity, and Christians themselves.? I shall then discuss how this all fits together.
I shall first discuss what the Qur'an says about Jesus. The Qur'an mentions Jesus thirty five times, either using the personal name "Isa" or a qualifier such as the Messiah or the son of Mary.[5] The attitude which the Qur'an takes to Jesus himself is very positive; he is the recipient of more honourable names than any other prophet or messenger of God,[6] and never once in these does the Qur'an criticise him.[7]
However, the Qur'an arguably makes the Jesus of the Qur'an out to be substantially different to the Jesus of Christian tradition. Throughout the Qur'an, Jesus is portrayed as being a mere prophet in the line of prophets (albeit arguably a rather important one) rather than the divine Jesus of Christian doctrine; and Surah 9:30 for example calls a curse upon those who claim that Jesus is the Son of God.[8] Although a number of Muslim and Christian commentators have noticed that none of these statements are irreducible and there are ways of reconciling all of these texts with the Christian understanding of Jesus,[9] the immediate way of reading it is utterly scathing upon the Christian doctrine of Jesus. The Christian doctrine that Jesus is the son of God is certainly absent from the Qur'an[10], even if there are slight hints of something approaching Christian doctrine in passages like Surah 4:171, which describes Jesus as being the Word of God.[11] Since this discussion can go no further without turning into a discussion of the trinity, which I intend to discuss later on when I discuss the attitude of the Qur'an towards Christian doctrine, I shall stop at this point in order to continue discussing Jesus.? For the moment it will suffice to say that the Qur'an has a markedly different attitude towards the divinity of Christ; almost certainly denying it in the strongest terms, although this cannot be conclusively proven.
For orthodox Christians, the significance of Jesus is inextricably intertwined with his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection[12]; the apostle Paul said that his entire message was to preach "Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:2). The gospels expend great amounts of time speaking about Jesus' death and resurrection, which they clearly regard as a very significant part of the good news about of the figure of Jesus.[13]? However, the Qur'an denies (or, according to some people, only appears to deny[14]) the crucifixion, stating in Surah 4:157 "That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not."[15] This is a serious difference between the Christian figure of Jesus, and the Qur'anic figure of Jesus.
There are, however, a number of people who argue that this is not actually a denial of Christian doctrine. There are those who argue that it is in fact a denial that the Jewish killing of Jesus was triumphant for them,[16] but they can easily be written off because the text clearly says "they killed him not, nor crucified him" - even if the primary intention of that was to deny the triumph of the Jews in this, it nonetheless states that quite clearly. However, another approach, which seems more convincing to me, is to argue that this is more a statement that it was not the Jews who were ultimately responsible for Jesus' death[17]; the gospels make it clear that Jesus was not actually ultimately under the power of human beings in that time (see, for example, Jesus' saying "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above" in John 19:11 NRSV), but under the power of God who put him in the hands of the Jews. Furthermore, in the gospels, it is not actually the Jews who kill Jesus, but the Romans.[18]? It therefore seems plausible to me that the meaning of the verse in question is not that Jesus was not crucified; however, this is far from the most natural explanation of a verse which mentions nothing of God or Romans killing Jesus, and unless I were motivated by dogmatic concerns I would not turn to it. I will therefore conclude that the Qur'an denies the Christian story of the crucifixion of Jesus.
Studying the person of Jesus in the Qur'an is a huge topic, which would take a good number of complete essays to do full justice to. Obviously, that is not possible in this essay alone. I will therefore state that my own impression of Jesus in the Qur'an, gained after reading all the relevant verses and a number of books of secondary literature, is that he is a highly regarded prophet, but in most ways is a substantially different figure from the Jesus of Christianity, although it is not possible to prove this in an essay of this scope. I have, however, been able to demonstrate the two main differences between the Qur'anic Jesus and the Christian one (the crucifixion, and the divinity).
I shall therefore move on to the attitude of the Qur'an towards the
Bible. The Qur'an frequently refers to past
scriptures, in the Yusuf-Ali translation referring to them using the terms
"Law" (see Surah 3:65), "Psalms" (see Surah 4:163), and "Gospel" (see again
Surah 3:65).[19] It states that the Law was given to Moses (Surah
2:87), the Psalms were given to David (Surah 4:163), and the Gospel was given
to Jesus (
Many Muslims argue that these books have been changed at some point
and therefore that the Qur'an is not talking about the Bible as we now have it
when it refers to these scriptures,[21]
but this seems virtually impossible.?
Textual evidence goes back to before the time of Mohammed on all of the documents
of the bible to a greater or lesser degree[22],
so we can be reasonably confident that the books which we currently possess are
those which the Qur'an speaks of when addressing the contemporaries of
Mohammed. The Qur'an commands "Let the
people of the Gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein" (Surah
So, to summarise what we have discovered about the attitude of the Qur'an towards the Bible, there are three words which the Qur'an uses to describe parts of the bible ("Law", "Psalms", and "Gospel"), and I have stated that these words refer to significant parts of the Bible.? I have also discussed whether there is likely to be any truth in the common Muslim apologetic claim that the Bible has been changed, and have concluded that there is not. The Qur'an teaches that the Bible, or large parts of it including the gospels, is fundamentally reliable.
I will now turn to the attitude of the Qur'an towards Christian doctrines. In some ways, the Qur'an is very similar to Christianity; the Qur'an affirms the oneness of God (see, for example, Surah 112:1 - "Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;"[26]), that he is "Master of the Day of Judgement" (Surah 1:3),[27] and that he is "the creator of all things" (Surah 6:102).[28]? However, there is one Christian doctrine which the Qur'an explicitly and specifically denies - that of the trinity.
Surah 4:171 states "O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: Nor say of Allah aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers. Say not "Trinity" : desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah: Glory be to Him: (far exalted is He) above having a son. To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is Allah as a Disposer of affairs."[29] Although some translators argue that the word "trinity" should be translated as "three",[30] it is nonetheless fairly obvious that it is the Christian doctrine of the trinity which is being referred to here; it refers to the station of Jesus being limited, and also states that God does not have a son. While this does not provide conclusive proof that the Qur'an denies the doctrine of the trinity, it does give some very strong evidence for this.
Lastly, I shall examine what the Qur'an says about Christians. In Surah 2:62, it states that Christians have
the capacity to go to heaven.[31] At the same time, there are critical points
which are said about Christians; for example, Surah 2:101 states that a number
of members of the people of the book refuse to follow their book when it
instructs them that a new messenger has come,[32]
and Surah 2:159 states that a number of people of the book deliberately conceal
evidence that makes it clear that Islam is true.[33]
Within a single surah (Surah 5), Muslims
are told that nearest in love to them are Christians (5:82), but also that they
are forbidden to take them as friends (
In conclusion, I would like to observe the following. The Qur'an has a number of things to say
about Christians, both positive and negative, which may well indicate that it
is positive towards some Christians, but not towards others. The Qur'an also has a number of positive
things to say about Christianity itself - it argues that it is a result of a
past revelation of God, for example. It
argues that the Bible, or at least a major constitutive part of it, is a valid
revelation of God, and yet declares that anyone who believes in the recurrent
biblical doctrine that Jesus is the son of God is an unbeliever who should be
cursed (Surah 9:30), while stating that it is possible for Christians to attain
salvation (Surah 2:62.) In short, the
attitude of the Qur?an towards Christianity is fundamentally ambivalent;
indeed, more than that, it is extremely incoherent and self-contradictory. While it is plausible that the reason it
appears like this is because of extremely unusual forms of Christianity in